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Destiny 2: Season Of My Drifting Interest

I’ve never made a secret of my love for Destiny. I’ve been playing it from day one back in 2014, and I still believe it has the tightest and smoothest gameplay of any shooter, ever. But what Bungie is presenting as content is a far cry from expansions past.

My regular fireteam and I logged in yesterday to take a look at the new content.

I was underwhelmed in the extreme.

I’ve seen Destiny’s systems evolve from the beginning, and no matter how convoluted those systems have been, they always made sense to me. Yesterday, as I was delving into Gambit Prime and Reckoning, I found myself completely confused as to what to do to start obtaining the new armor. It was a strange feeling.

Gambit has long since worn out it’s by-the-numbers welcome with me, and Gambit Prime isn’t off to a good start; either the servers were having issues or there were some major kinks in the system. Any time I was invaded upon, it was literally hit and/or miss if my rockets would make contact with the invader. I would see my rocket hit them and detonate, yet no damage was rendered. That happened more than half a dozen times.

When I heard Gambit Prime was one round (instead of the multiple rounds of standard Gambit), I was interested; Gambit has always seemed to take far too long. However. Due to the structure of Prime, it can take what feels like far longer than a standard Gambit match due to the strats involved in taking down the Primeval.

Oof.

I am already not a fan of Gambit Prime, even with a full fireteam.

Then you have Reckoning which is basically a horde mode, but with droves of snipers who have your number no matter where you are or what you do, and it’s frustration city. At one point I counted at least five snipers on one small platform and they were far from the only snipers around.

I am also not a fan of Reckoning.

The rest of the content amounts to little more than extended bounties which include a lot of busy work. I love, love, LOVE Destiny, but I draw the line at all the busy work.

I miss the days of the expansions of yore. I miss House of Wolves, and The Dark Below. I miss Rise of Iron. I miss The Taken King. Those were stories. Those had a narrative you could experience and majestic moments with massive bosses. Those had new story missions and strikes and Crucible maps.

Season of the Drifter is a pale, pale shadow of those expansions.

After a handful of hours with it last night, I felt more off-put by Destiny than I possibly ever have before. If this is the direction the game and its content is taking, I’m not sure Destiny is the game for me anymore. And that’s okay. I will always adore the first game in a way I’ve never loved the sequel. These seasons feel more and more devoid of the content I’ve come to know and love from Destiny.

If this is the direction that’s best for Destiny and its audience, so be it. I will miss playing sorely, but with the wealth of other excellent games to be played, I can hardly force myself to play something I don’t continue to enjoy. I will keep at it here and there to see how I feel about the rest of the Season of the Drifter, but I think either Destiny has changed or I have (or we both have), and we aren’t the excellent match we used to be.